There are a different types of ice skates: the figure skate, the hockey skate, the bandy skate, the racing skate and the touring skate.
Ice skating is based on the metal blade at the bottom of the skate shoe gliding with very little friction over the surface of the ice. Skaters can increase friction and control their movement at will, by slightly leaning the blade over and digging one of its edges into the ice for example. Skaters can also use gravity to control and increase their momentum, by moving along curved paths while leaning their bodies radially and flexing their knees, for example. They can also create momentum by pushing the blade against the curved track which it cuts into the ice.
The phenomena have been studied in some depth. Experiments have shown that ice has a minimum kinetic friction at −7 C, and many indoor skating rinks set their system to a similar temperature. [The low amount of friction actually observed has been difficult for physicists to explain, especially at lower temperatures. On the surface of any body of ice at a temperature above about −20° C., there is always a thin film of liquid water, ranging in thickness from only a few molecules to thousands of molecules. The thickness of this liquid layer depends almost entirely on the temperature of the surface of the ice, with higher temperatures giving a thicker layer.
Traditionally, this layer of water on the ice has been controlled either by controlling the temperature of the ice, i.e. by heating, or by controlling the contact geometry of the blade, i.e. by controlling the pressure exerted on the ice.
There is still a need in the art for ice skate blades and method for improving performances thereof.